Background
Sidney Elisabeth Croskery was born in Gortgranagh, Killinure, County Tyrone.
Sidney Elisabeth Croskery was born in Gortgranagh, Killinure, County Tyrone.
When she was three years old her father died suddenly (of a duodenal ulcer) and the family had to leave their country house ("Mountjoy") and move to Belfast. In 1939 a fellow-doctor working in Sana"a, in the Yemen, Eleanor Petrie, asked her to take her place for nine months or so while she was on leave. Sidney, glad of a change of scene, accepted the invitation.
However, due to the outbreak of war, she was not allowed to return home until April 1945.
After the war she returned to Aden to continue her medical work, but, due to a serious attack on a colleague, felt compelled to resign her position. Over the following years, until she left Aden in 1967, she worked in different parts of Arabia, concentrating on the treatment and prevention of blindness.
Even after her "official" retirement she spent four gruelling winters touring the wilder parts of the Yemen, treating and operating on trachoma sufferers.
During this time she became a member of the Society of Friends because she was a pacifist.